BUSTARDS 159 



the most characteristic birds to be met with on 

 the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire wolds, the wide 

 "brecks" of Norfolk and Suffolk, the heaths of 

 Newmarket and Royston, and the open down land 

 of Berkshire, Wiltshire, Hants, and Sussex. The 

 last examples of the native race were killed in 

 Norfolk in 1838, while in Suffolk none were known 

 to breed after 1832. In Yorkshire Bustards were 

 met with at intervals until 1832 or 1833, when 

 it is said the last was trapped at Boynton, near 

 Bridlington.^ Of Wiltshire, Montagu reported in 

 1813 that none had been seen in their favourite 

 haunts on Salisbury Plain for two or three years 

 previously ; while in Sussex and Hants the native 

 race of Bustards probably disappeared very soon 

 after Gilbert White wrote of them as being seen 

 " in the midst of the downs between Andover and 

 Winton." It would appear that the extension of 

 plantations broke up the open country which the 

 birds loved to frequent, and the introduction of 

 improved agricultural implements, such as the 

 "corn-drill" and the "horse-hoe," led to the dis- 

 covery and destruction of the eggs in the wide 

 " brecks," or fields of winter corn. (See Stevenson, 

 "Birds of Norfolk," ii. p. 11.) Since then the 

 Bustard's claim to be regarded as a British bird has 

 rested solely on the occasional arrival of wanderers 

 from the Continent, which usually make their ap- 

 pearance in winter. A remarkable immigration of 



* See an article, by the present writer, on the former occurrence 

 of the Bustard in Yorkshire, in Tlie Field of March 6, 1897. 



